I’m a sinner.  I’ve been using Windows again.  It started innocently enough.  I was teaching and I usually use Dameware (Windows only) to connect to the machine that displays my PowerPoint slides.  I installed the enterprise version of RealVNC on the box running PowerPoint and I also put VNC on my Fedora box.  The connection failed because they couldn’t agree on a cipher to use.  Needing to start my lecture I jumped back to Windows figuring I’d tweak the VNC settings later.  It has been a week and I haven’t gotten around to it.

To add to the confusion I decided to switch back to my normal laptop (which is dual-booting Vista and Fedora 9) but I have not been able to get my WLAN card to work on the Fedora side (which worked without problem in FC8).  I have spent several hours working on it but haven’t had success yet.  As is so often the case I needed to get some work done and I needed to be wireless to do it so I switched over to Windows.  That was several days ago.  I’m typing this using Vista…

This is the second time in as many laptops that I have had problems getting the WLAN card to work in Linux.  Both are with Dell notebooks.  One has an Intel card, the other is Broadcom.  Both are visible to the system and can even see the list of WLANs being advertised.  They just can’t connect.   I was able to get the Broadcom card working but the Intel card (the one in my regular laptop) still isn’t playing.  The Windows snob in me says, “See!  I told you.  Screw Linux.”  The more open-minded person in me is wondering if it isn’t Dell.  Maybe they tend to put the suckiest, cheapest stuff they can find into their notebooks in order to maximize profits.  And maybe, just maybe, that stuff isn’t part of a normal driver build that would work for a wide range of other devices.  But, Dell pretty much rules the roost in the notebook department (that’s a guess based on personal observation) so it would make sense that the developers who contribute their time to Linux would give these commonly seen devices the time and attention they need to be functional right out of the box.

Ultimately it’s my responsibility to get these drivers working.  I know this.  I’m motivated.  But what will the average user do?  A user on the bubble, trying to decide if their world is going to be Windows or Linux, may lean toward the relative seamlessness of Windows.  It’s the little things that make the difference; the way a menu works, the ease of making a shortcut to your desktop, installing software and configuring a WLAN connection that make the difference.  Today, I’m with Windows.  But I won’t give up…

Colin